A Difference That Makes No Difference
by Sally Mn
Summary: Tarrant has a secret... Series 3.


**A Difference That Makes No Difference**

Kerr Avon knows.

He's sitting on the flight deck couch, staring at me with those strange dark hooded eyes, and he _knows_.

Zikwamanikthadol knows how he's found me out, I've been as careful as I know how since the day I slithered onto the ship, saw those Death Squad goons had reached it first and... well, did what any fine upstanding Space Captain would have done, turned my coat, played them against him, and came out on top.

Hasn't been easy since, but I thought I'd done a good job hiding it.

But Avon knows... and the others? Not Dayna, surely, she'd grab the nearest weapon and use me for the hunting practice she'd been whining she doesn't get enough of. Vila -? No, he hates me quite enough for what I did when I was still trying to work out what I was doing. I'm trying to get round that, to find a way to make - friends, I think he and the rest call it, nice idea. I'd rather like to be Vila's friend, but if he knew... no.

Cally, I'm not sure. Avon does talk to her, not a lot, but more than he does to the rest of us. She's alien, of course, but I'm still not sure _how_ alien and how much difference it would make... that makes me nervous, and I say stupid things about her alienness. I don't mean them, Zokyiimikthodal knows I'd be the last...

"How did you find out?" I try to speak normally, well, normally for me. "Zen hasn't...?"

"Zen refused to discuss it," he says slowly; there's a low snarl in his voice - I wish I could do that - but it's muted, so I don't think he's going to shoot me just yet. "Just as you commanded him. So I asked Orac to force the information out."

"Why? I don't think I gave you any reason -"

"All knowledge is useful." Well, _that_ answer was no answer at all, even by his standards. "I was curious. Though I can't say I expected what Orac found."

I put out a hand... I like my hands, they're strong and large and very flexible. I could kill a man with these hands - maybe I'll need to one day - though I admit I find guns easier.

I don't tell Avon that. He probably knows... and he has the gun.

"So are you going to kill me?"

He frowns slightly. "Why should I?"

"Well, I thought -"

"You are extremely irritating, yes, but if I've refrained from shooting you for _that_ reason, I fail to see that this is a better. You've proved an adequate pilot, a reasonably good fighter, and as - passably - trustworthy as I expected from the first."

That was a compliment... I think.

"Your background was always very dubious - in fact, I might call this an improvement on the Federation deserter and mercenary." He's still watching me. "If course, that may be _your_ reason for being here in the first place."

"More or less."

"How - _much_ less?" The snarl deepens a bit.

"I was on the run... I don't really like killing, like most soldiers I wasn't given the option. And when our ship was crippled... and what with the way the battle went... it seemed like a gift from the gods."

He smiles, without humour. "Gods often have a devious sense of humour, don't they?"

Mine certainly do, yes.

"I've nowhere else to go, Avon," I try for honesty, which isn't something I've learned to handle well, but at least I do try. "I'm not going to murder you all in your beds, even if I knew how to pick locks like Vila can... and Zen wouldn't let me poison you even if I knew what _would_ poison you, which I don't and I don't want to. I can tell you," trying for a little more honesty if it kills me and _he_ might, "I can't drink Zen's coffee."

"I've noticed."

"And it's not the taste."

"I'm... a member of this crew, and I'll stand by you all as long a you let me. Don't tell Vila, but I'm more scared of _them_ than he is of hairy aliens."

"Which 'them'?" He asked, genuinely curious.

"All... any of my 'them' still out there would kill me, and yours are already trying to in the name of the Federation."

There's a silence, while he stares at me some more and thinks. I try to look harmless - not all that easy like this - and trustworthy - which is slightly easier, if I can just stop the sarcastic twist to these lips - and every bit the stalwart rebel Space Captain he took on all those weeks ago.

"I still need a pilot, and you're the best we have. But try anything, betray us in any way," he finally snaps, "and I'll kill you myself."

"_That_ hasn't changed, then."

"No." He rises and heads for the doorway. "Continue as you are... and we can still work together."

"Thanks." I can't help it, it sounds sarcastic, but it seems he realises that... well, I _can't_ help it. "Will you tell the others?'

"Not unless circumstance forces me, or they discover it themselves. Which I doubt..." A small smile, that would freeze the yqiblits off a brazen miszqighlitkey, touches his lips. I wish I could do that. "They are hardly the most observant trio in the rebel alliance, not even Cally."

"Cally's an alien."

One eyebrow rises. I wish I could do _that_, I practice when I'm alone in my cabin. "And your point -?"

"Oh. Right. Uh, and Avon?"

He reached the corridor down to the cabins, but turns back for a minute.

"You - wouldn't have liked him, truly. And I _could_ claim it was self-defence."

He looks puzzled... "Who?"

"Umm... Tarrant."

"The Tarrant we never met."

"Yes... he _was_ a deserter, a mercenary, a murderer... I didn't like what I took from his mind. I know he was - one of your own..."

Avon snorts. I actually _can_ do that, but not well enough to do it in public. Yet. "Hardly. He was an enemy... as much, whatever Blake believed, as you were."

Oh yes, damn. Blake...

"Will you tell him? When we find him?"

"Tell him what? That we've replaced his pilot, his _Jenna_, with a mouthy Andromedan alien hiding in the guise of a mercenary Space Captain? No, I won't tell him..."

He paused, and I sigh. Even aliens know how to do _that_.

Avon's smile is now definitely all too human. Which of course he _is_... I think.

"You will."

Now what in all of Zooukvpoibyflkthedyl's seven hundred names does this all too human mean... by that?

**-the end-**


End file.
